Shawn C. Graves We’ll call him Tree — trees fascinate him. He climbs them in reality and in his dreams, fearlessly. Tree is five years old. When his mother (Mom) and I started dating, we immediately spoke of our children. I have two daughters, three and seven. Mom has two sons, five and eleven and a daughter, fourteen. We both found out quickly that we were proud parents and shared several parenting notions and ideals. She then explained to me that Tree was autistic. Of course, I have heard of autism before. But I was to soon find out I knew nothing of it. I mean it’s our nature, right? If something doesn’t directly affect us or interest us, we rarely find out more about it than what the media tells us or what mainstream society thinks about it. I honestly didn’t give the issue much thought — I was…